All the Cheese Your Mortal Coil Can Handle

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This week, podcaster Andy Carlson recalled how disdain for a Vikings coach launched his booming Purple FTW! We touched on his ability to keep four podcasts up and growing, and the Vikings’ very real chances of playing in next year’s Minneapolis-based Super Bowl LII (Intro).

At Bauhaus Bew Labs, Mark Schwandt explained how a strong media presence and a “monopoly on weirdness” helped Bauhaus assert themselves in an ever-growing craft beer market. Speaking of, is it a “craft beer bubble” or a “craft beer window”? We wondered aloud. He talked about working in a family business – it’s all hands on deck in that family – the videos that often accompany beer releases, and I taught him how to Facebook! (12:27) You can watch one of Bauhaus’ videos below the podcast link!

It was like 2:00 in the afternoon. I didn’t even need coffee. I’d been drinking coffee all morning. I’d barely twitched off the last of that caffeine rush when I walked into the Atomic Cowboy and saw the self-serve all-you-can-drink diesel stand. Suddenly, I’m grabbing the one cup you could hide a pint glass in and pumping the dispenser like Zig Ziggler used to fake-pump his invisible well for that his fake Alabama water.

Perfect. Mixing uppers and downers is pretty stupid but sure, I’ll have a beer too.

My wife and I had about three hours to kill before plodding on through Transportation Security at the Denver International Airport – which, if that’s really where the New World Order is hanging out, the way they designed that place has me pretty convinced their shit isn’t even close to being together. This isn’t about flight travel, however. This is about what it takes to make your flight travel supremely uncomfortable whilst simultaneously rocketing your calorie count and turning your insides into a Mario Kart battle mode map.

It takes four giant coffees,two pints of beer, and something like this.

One slice of pizza could just about cover that sandwich, and don’t worry: I had one of those, too.

The Basics: Three Atomic Cowboy locations are sprinkled across Denver. We visited the Broadway location. The Atomic Cowboy represents the co-habitation of three companies: The Atomic Cowboy, the bar; the Denver Biscuit Company; and Fat Sully’s Pizza. It’s basically a post card stand, but with carbs. You can find them on the website here.

You may recognize Winona Collider as the previous Official Dagger Dolls Liaison to the Minnesota Skinny; but probably, you recognize her from my most popular Instagram picture to date. It remains:

She moved to Colorado Springs at the end of 2016. She drove all the way out to meet my wife and I for lunch during our vacation out there, and this was her recommendation. Winona, as of press time, spends most of her nights with one dog sleeping between her feet and the head of another dog wedged in an armpit. If she’s particularly unlucky, she may wake up with a cat sprawled across the top of her head.

My wife and I cannot exactly identify, but we land in the same ballpark: our dogtopus routinely lays down between us in Sphinx stance, then rolls onto a side, then thrusts his legs into one of us whilst ramming his back like a Chuck Norris kick into the other. When all is said and done, 60 percent of our bed is taken by a 40-pound dog.

This is the common ground upon which we built the long-distance phase of our friendship. That, and coffee.

We settled in beneath the nose of a missile hanging over the door, to the right of the neon cowboy holding the ray gun. We couldn’t quite see the woman riding the rocket, but we could definitely see the buffalo head. It’s wacky in there, for sure, but it isn’t oppressively so. I got right to the coffee.

Self-serve coffee is the next great restaurant innovation. Look! There’s even decaf. It’s really sweet to see the Atomic Cowboy doesn’t discriminate against serial killers.

We all ordered biscuit sandwiches. America. Winona dialed up the club. My wife ordered the Sherman, and I the Winona. Mine was the smallest of the three, a simple fried chicken/fried egg one-two punch. My wife’s Sherman was the Biscuit Co’s take on a BLT, and Winona’s club was a Fred Astaire dance routine except food. I can tell you this much: the biscuit was perfectly flaky on the outside, but still chewy and gooey to the point you needed another 20 ounces of coffee to wash it down (but really just a sip would’ve worked). Excellent biscuit.

Our server was prompt and delightful on a day I was spastic and indecisive. When I didn’t know what beer I wanted, then suddenly “Wait, no, yeah, Pivo Pils!” she was on it. (Pivo Pils is just okay, by the way) When I saw a man walk by with an Atomic Cowboy T-shirt and I just had to have it right now, she was calm and collected when I was a blubbering mess. For three sandwiches, two coffee passes, three beers, a tee, tip, and tax, I ran somewhere around $80.

That’s no-brainer pricing, and I haven’t even brought up the pizza yet.

“Where’s that ozone hole, I’ve got something!”

That white, circular shadow you see underneath it? That’s the plate. Had we stayed even a day longer, I’d have ordered a whole pie just to behold one. The spinach was among the freshest-looking I’ve seen on pizza; and, for its size, it’s equally impressive that Canadian bacon nearly blankets it entirely. I’d have wanted more sauce, but I say that about everything. Great crust. Half of this was a great end to our meal; the other half was a great mid-flight snack.

That was the embodiment of the Atomic Cowboy experience. It all was. Bigger coffee. Bigger biscuit. Bigger pizza. Bigger waistline that barely allows you to sit properly in a plane seat. Bigger buzz, faster mouth, and you don’t shut up once during a three-hour flight. The stranger sitting next to you probably feels like she’s in a Saw torture trap. Bigger coffee crash while you’re trying to find your luggage after your land. Bigger food coma that really sets in while you’re driving home. You’re no help whatsoever bringing everything back into the house. Atomic Cowboy.